Savage Tide; Pathfinder

The Lotus Dragons

Headed by the brutal and beautiful daughter of a minor noble, Rowyn Kellani, the Lotus Dragons were poised to take over the vacancy of eminent thieves’ guild in Sasserine created by the destruction of the Artful Parrot gang, a guild that met its destruction under the oppressive rule of the Sea Princes. Since the death and exile of the Sea Princes just ten years before, several groups of like-minded ne’er-do-wells have attempted to establish a new, official thieves’ guild, but the Dawn Council and respective district watches have struggled to thwart every attempt.

The Lotus Dragons, however, broke this hold over vice in Sasserine and gained a foothold in the world of organized crime throughout the city. After getting tipped off to the fact that the Lotus Dragons were poised to take control of all sea trade in the city after slaying the current Harbormaster and that they were colluding with Vanthus, Lavinia’s estranged brother, the group conducted an investigation, and then located and infiltrated the Lotus Dragon guildhall and managed to defeat or capture the members inside, including the guildmistress, Rowyn Kellani. The remaining thieves are now scattered, having no leadership, and the guildhall is now under the control of The Dawn Council, having been turned over by the party.

Rowyn Kellani
A beautiful human woman with long red hair tied back in a ponytail, whose green eyes twinkled with menace like chips of fiery emerald. Rowyn moved with an unsettling grace, and had two visible tattoos, one on each arm, showing a coiled dragon wrapping the length of her right arm and a large lotus adorning her left shoulder. She dressed in nautically-styled leather armor adorned with green and gold accents, and clearly favored opulent equipment, with expensive jewelry.

After her defeat and escape, her revenge on the party showed her to be in much worse shape than their last meeting. Months of stowing away on their ship, combined with malnutrition, obsession, and whatever insanity lead her to her final position took their toll, making her ashen and aged well beyond her years. The creature she ended her life as was a husk of her former dangerous beauty.

Eldest daughter of the infamous Sasserine noble house the Kellanis and the guild master of the Lotus Dragons guild, little is known of Rowyn outside of her immediate family. A cruel and ambitious woman, she kept a crested felldrake as a pet and referred to her guild torturer as her “Human Resources Manager”. Canny and resourceful, Rowyn allowed the party to break themselves on her assorted minions before arriving in her lair, where she tempted them with an offer of employment. Even after they refused and defeated her soundly, she swallowed a potion that turned her into a cloud of vapor and escaped before she could be apprehended, leaving her cohort to die.

While apparently underground for months, Rowyn at last resurfaced as a stowaway aboard the Sea Wyvern, where she set up a number of clever sabotages engineered to kill off the members of the Gang of Five one by one. All her attempts met with actual failure, but drew enough attention that the party eventually sought her out and succeeded at hunting her down. After a short battle with a maddened and considerably broken woman, Rowyn was at last laid to rest and buried unceremoniously at sea.

After Rowyn’s escape and disappearance but before her return after stowing away on the ship, it was Rowyn’s sister, Tegan Kellani, who undertook a series of brutal murders aimed at drawing out the Gang of Five so as to murder them. While Tegan was defeated, the experience broke the young woman, and in the wake of the dual disgrace her daughters had brought her, their mother, Heldrath Kellani, committed suicide.

Penkus Axehammeraxe:
A now-deceased friend of Vanthus Vanderboren and member of the Lotus Dragons, Penkus went with Vanthus and a handful of other Lotus Dragon members to Parrot Island, expecting to reclaim the riches buried underneath it for the guild. Instead, Vanthus saw an opportunity to eliminate some of his competition for the so-called “Lady Lotus”, the guild’s leader, and abandoned Penkus and his men below the island where they were killed by the undead smugglers who were trapped there. It was a Content Not Found: note-from-penkus found on Penkus’ body that clued the party in to Vanthus’ true intentions.

Gut Tugger:
A bitter, surly, crested felldrake who served broadly as Rowyn’s “pet”, close friend, servant, and confidant, Gut Tugger was one of a rare number of evil-aligned members of his species. Pretending to be a stupid animal, he escaped his home community and was purchased by Heldrath Kellani, Rowyn’s father, as a gift for her sixteenth birthday. Eventually revealing the secret of his intelligence to his new “owner”, the two became fast friends.

During the final melee in the Lotus Dragons Guildhall, Rowyn left Gut Tugger to face the party alone while she escaped. While it was clear she mourned Gut Tugger’s imminent death, tears in her eyes as she apologized for what she was about to do, it didn’t prevent her escape or Gut Tugger’s death at the hands of the party. Gut Tugger’s story ends with his body being stuffed and mounted as a trophy by Othar, courtesy of Nemian Roblach, the Taxidermist’s Guild master.

Kersh Reftun:
A tan, muscular human with a bestubbled chin and short, dark, greasy hair, Kersh is the Lotus Dragon’s torturer, though Rowyn jokingly refers to him as her “Human Resources Director”. Kersh has a flair for the dramatic and loves to play pranks; when an alarm was raised in the Lotus Dragon guildhall, Kersh told the thief who alerted him to dress up in his torturer’s apron, then dressed his self in rags and pretended to be tied to the rack. When the party entered, they quickly dispatched his “torturer”, and when they released he claimed to be a silk merchant from another city who had been kidnapped. While initially skeptical, the party went along with his story until mentioning that they had also killed Cruncher, the worg Reftun kept as a pet. Upon hearing this, Kersh flew into a rage, dropping his disguise and attacking the party with a hot branding iron. Bellowing oaths and racial epithets at the party, he turned his attention of Kizziar, the half-orc, whom he slammed into a waiting iron maiden before being brought down.

Widely regarded by even the Lotus Dragon thieves as “a fucking sadist” and “a racist asshole”, Kersh’s death went unmourned by all but Rowyn herself.

Cruncher:
A midnight-black worg whom Kersh kept as a pet, Cruncher disposed of the bodies of the guild’s enemies with a ravenous hunger. When the party encountered him, he was guarding the guild’s lockup. Appearing at first to simply be a large, black wolf, the party attempted to befriend him. The worg played along for a moment, long enough to let the party get close, then launched his attack. Eventually, after a protracted and dangerous battle, he was brought down, a look of very human confusion at his own frailty frozen on his face.

Churtle:
The former cook and poison mistress of the Lotus Dragons, now in the employ of the party.